


To Feel Joy

by uumuu



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Fix-It of Sorts, Incest, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:00:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8224666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: Elrond and Elros don't want to let go.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyfortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/gifts).



> I used one of your older prompts for this ship to write this story - I liked the idea of a canon divergence AU.

Maedhros stood with his back to the wall, listening to the hissing of arrows through air as the twins practiced archery in the courtyard below. The setting sun cast shadows long and thin over the castle, which stretched on grass and stone like discarded darts. He toyed with the hilt of his sword, worrying the dulled metal, and tapped his right foot unceasingly on the ground, fighting the urge to push himself away from the wall and walk off, far from the courtyard. Not that it would have availed him much: even had he been at the opposite end of the fortress, he would still have heard the distinct thuds of the arrows hitting the target. Amon Ereb was a small fortress, and seemed to shrink more and more as the number of people who lived in it decreased. There was no way for him to avoid the twins.

“We should have sent them away long ago,” he muttered, barely loud enough for Maglor, who stood next to him, to hear.

Elrond shot a dart which hit the target right in the middle, and whirled around to bestow a radiant, triumphant smile on them. 

Maglor leant against the railing, and waved back at him. “We were never good at letting go of what we love.”

Arrow after arrow flew from one end of the courtyard to the other. Every successful shot seemed to push the sun further down beyond the Ered Luin, and when it had finally disappeared, leaving only a red halo to crown the mountain tops, Elrond and Elros lay their bows down on a bench, left Hithfaer to collect the used arrows and hurried up the narrow staircase to join Maedhros and Maglor in the walkway connecting the tower-house to the outbuildings. 

Elrond threw himself in Maedhros's arms and kissed him, a quick but forward and affectionate peck, then did the same with Maglor. Elros's display of affection was more restrained, but no less sincere.

Maedhros didn't pull back when Elrond reached for his cheek, and accepted Elros's hug without flinching. He didn't even need to bend too much anymore. The twins had both grown quite tall – not as tall as Maedhros himself, but a good couple of inches taller than Maglor.

“Were we good?” Elros asked, large limpid eyes staring up at him. 

Before he could stop himself, Maedhros lifted his hand to ruffle Elros's hair as he had done countless times with his brothers not-so-long before – though it seemed to him like centuries had passed – and with the same pride, the same hope-filled tenderness. He quickly smoothed it back again, and was careful to school his voice and face into severe detachment before speaking. “Yes, as always. You will make fine soldiers, brave leaders of your people.”

The implicit reminder that they would have to part ways, sooner or later, made Elros's face fall. It was lamentable, but necessary. Love had taken root between them, blameless and true, but there was no point in nurturing it. They were enemies, after all, and it would be best for them to remain such. Maedhros shouldered the memory of too many loved ones already.

Elrond, who still clung to Maglor, huffed and turned his long straight nose up. “Will we bathe together now?” he said, flashing Maglor a disarming smile. He looked askance at Maedhros as he made a show of taking Maglor's hand and squeezing it tightly. 

Maglor hummed a yes, and took Elros's hand too. “The water should have been warmed by now.” 

Maedhros stood aside to let three of them pass by him, and watched as Maglor walked the short distance to the entrance of the tower-house flanked by the twins. They had to separate once inside, and walk up the narrow turnpike stair one at a time, climbing past the kitchen and storage rooms and past the main hall. 

Maedhros stopped there to receive the reports from the scouts which regularly combed the area all around the hill. That evening, however, it was the sightings of the guards who stationed at the top of the tower that belayed him. The news they related made his steps heavier when he finally climbed the rest of the distance to the next floor. 

He tarried before the open door to his room and cast a glance up, a habit he couldn't let go of. The fourth floor had housed the twins, his own twins. Elros and Elrond had their quarters there now, in theory at least: they had both become proficient at finding excuses to spend the night with him and Maglor. Their room was large enough – it took up the whole third floor – and the bed cosy enough for four people if they wanted to share bodily heat. They did sleep in one another's arms, though their intimacy had never progressed beyond kisses and fondling. 

Maedhros took a deep breath and entered. He found Elros soaking in the round bathtub set down next to the fireplace at the farthest end of it, while Elrond and Maglor scrubbed themselves clean of dirt and sweat next to it. 

Maedhros managed to undo three of the clasps that kept his cape in place before Elrond set his sponge down and scuttled up to him. 

“Let me help you.”

“You'll catch cold,” Maedhros said, unable not to let his gaze roam over the other's naked body. Elrond's body had matured fast, and had its own share of scars already, a legacy of their skirmishes with orcs and the much harder fighting against a couple of stray balrogs who had attempted to flee south. 

“I may be half-human but I'm not that weak,” Elrond quipped, not hiding a smirk at one more little victory over Maedhros's half-hearted attempts to push him and his brother away. 

Maedhros sighed and let him do, but looked over his shoulder at the carvings on the mantelpiece, which had been sculpted during long dreary months by Caranthir himself, according to what he had been told by the soldiers who had been there when Caranthir and the twins had built the fortress after the Dagor Bragollach. 

Soon all four were wrapped in towels and sitting before the fireplace to dry and warm up before they had to dress again and head down to the hall for supper. Elros poked the fire to revive it after Maglor had added fresh wood to it. Maglor talked with the twins of anything that came to mind: the provisions for the upcoming winter, a song Elrond wanted to learn, the fact that the last tribe of Green Elves had departed from Beleriand. 

All of a sudden, Maedhros cleared his throat. “The army of the Valar is returning south,” he said, quietly, as if he were speaking to himself or as if he had been afraid to wake someone who was sleeping nearby, his gaze trained on the crackling flames. A log broke down in a spurt of sizzling ash, almost drowning his next words. “If the Valar have the Silmarils we will have to retrieve them. Attempt to, at least.”

He turned to Maglor. Maglor pursed his lips and hung his head, but didn't object. 

Maedhros didn't look at the twins. 

“You agree with that?” Elrond blustered, addressing Maglor, the shock and pique in his voice all too plain. 

“We don't have much of a choice at this point,” Maglor replied without falter or hesitation, but evenly, in the hope that their discussion would not end in a quarrel. They had had a few of those over the years.

The fireplace crackled on. Heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs. The twins exchanged a few hushed words, then Elrond leant forward so that he could peer at Maedhros's face. “Then I require a parting gift from you...the both of you,” he said. “...You will leave, won't you?”

Maedhros kept staring right in front of him. “I suppose we will have to. No-one we asked ever returned a Silmaril.”

The dig made Elros gasp, and Maglor cringe, but it didn't deter Elrond. 

“Will you grant us a gift?” he insisted.

“If it is in my power to give it,” Maedhros conceded. 

Elrond lost no time and stood up, letting the towel drop from his shoulders. He came to stand in front of Maedhros, placing himself between him and the fire. 

Maedhros's eyes narrowed. “Not that.”

“I asked you for a gift. The gift I want is you. That is in your power to give, is it not?” he taunted. “It doesn't become you to be so reticent, you know. I love you and your brother. If it had been in my power, I would have changed that. But I can't, just as you claim you can't stop going after your accursed gems. So why hold back? If we are to part ways forever, you can do this, so as to give us some truly...pleasant memories, too.”

“You don't know what you're asking for.” Maedhros climbed to his feet, stretching to his full height, the towel held loosely about him. 

Elrond darted a hand between his legs, towards the dark shape of his cock not entirely hidden by the flaps of the towel, and found him half-erect. “I do.” He stroked the heavy organ with his palm, unabashed. Maedhros gritted his teeth, but couldn't suppress a shudder, and his cock twitched in Elrond's hand. “I've seen the way you mount your brother out in the fields, after dusk, or under the trees, little caring of whoever might see.”

“Goodness,” Maglor exclaimed, half-shocked half-amused.

Maedhros wasn't amused. He had never made a mystery of his relationship with Maglor, and it upset him to hear Elrond talk of it in such crude terms. He grasped Elrond's chin in a crushing grip, drawing him closer to himself.

“You have anything to object to my relationship with my brother?”

“I don't,” Elrond firmly denied, stroking Maedhros's cock, steadily bringing him to hardness. “But I want the same.”

“What, you think you are as important to me as my brother?” Maedhros shook him. “You think you can take his place?”

Maglor stood up, worried. “Nelyo –”

Elrond pushed the towel off of Maedhros's shoulders, and roamed his free hand over his large chest. 

“Have your gift then,” Maedhros spat, closing in on Elrond's face to seize his mouth in a bruising kiss. His teeth nipped at Elrond's lips, and his tongue plunged inside his mouth, scouring it. Elrond was flushed when he released his face, eyes wide but glinting with satisfaction. Maedhros spun him around, pushed him towards the bed and shoved him face down on it. 

He took Elrond from behind, stretching him just enough to take his cock, and driving into him forcefully, without reprieve. Elrond was not quite prepared for it, and soon his arms gave way, but the muffled sounds which he spilled into the coverlet were sounds of pleasure, drawn-out moans and soft sweet yelps. Every now and then he formed more coherent sentences, urging Maedhros to fuck him harder.

Maedhros gave all he had to give. Elrond took it. 

At the peak of ecstasy, Maedhros climaxed long and hard, almost convulsing, and hastened to pull out. Elrond collapsed onto the bed, but immediately rolled on his back. They looked each other in the eye, and for the first time there was no barrier between them, just bare longing, the shared warmth of the pleasure that united them, and fondness. 

It lasted only a few moments, and neither had the chance to speak, because Maglor knelt between Elrond's legs and took him, desperate in a wholly different way from his brother. Maedhros was still staring fixedly at them when Elros knelt behind him. He stiffened, but Elros threw his arms around him and started kissing the scars that ran down and across his back, whip-marks and furrows dug by the rock, as if he could erase them.

The fire quickly went out, leaving only embers.

*

The pursuit took them over burnt hills and across despoiled plains. Maedhros and Maglor didn't turn back once after they fled the camp of the Valar, only rarely stopping to regain their strength. The twins caught up with them when the brothers rested at the bend of a rivulet, drinking what little water was left among puddles of mud, two lone specks of life in the boundless wasteland. 

When Maglor turned towards the rocky riverbank where Maedhros and he had left their baggage, he started, nearly losing his footing on the slippery pebbles beneath his feet.

“Elrond,” he croaked, his head darting from one twin to the other. “Elros. What-...what on earth are you two doing here?”

Maedhros turned too, his weary, blood-shot eyes widening in disbelief to which wrath presently lent a harsher edge. 

Elros stood on a large boulder, and Elrond next to him, holding the bag with the Silmarils.

Maedhros was out of the mostly dried up river in three long strides, and dashed in leaps and bounds towards them. He made for the bag, but Elrond held it back and Elros stretched his left arm out, as if to ward him off.

“What, are you going to kill me for these?” Elrond yelled, feigning dauntlessness, though he could barely keep his voice from cracking with fear, because Maedhros looked like he was ready to do exactly that. Elrond had never seen him so beside himself, with an almost wild light to his eyes, a ruthless determination completely at odds with the deathly but upstanding soldier he had known until then. The blood which sprinkled his clothes and stained his hand wasn't the black blood of orcs. It was dark red, and had the same colour of an open wound nestling among the scars on Maedhros's left cheek.

That was what his mother had fled from. 

His heartbeat thundered in his own ears, as if screaming for him to turn and run. He took a step back, but his legs trembled and he almost slipped. Maedhros's arms twitched, perhaps ready to catch him. Elrond went rigid. Maedhros was his enemy, but he was also a brother, a friend, and the one he loved. He couldn't flee. He would _not_ flee. He would _not_ lose, wouldn't leave anything he loved behind. 

Maglor's footsteps rang out purposefully loud on the riverbank. Elrond's eyes leapt to him, but Maglor stopped at a few paces from the boulder – close enough to be a witness, but keeping enough distance to let events follow their course.

Maedhros didn't seem to have noticed him. When he finally moved again, his face softened and he stretched out his hand, palm turned upwards with his fingers slightly curled, as a man who prays for rain. “We told you we would have to go separate ways...we came to an agreement, didn't we?” he said. His voice was raspy, brittle like the soil he stood on, but still conveyed a resolute firmness. “Let me have my Silmaril and I will leave the world. You will go on living in the light of my treasure. I will join my father again, in the gloom of death.”

“Well, I would have liked to be with my father too, I would have liked to grow up with him!” Elrond screamed back at him. His stomach gave a lurch at the thought of Maedhros taking his own life. 

“You have a debt towards us,” Elros hastily added.

Maedhros turned to him, but he could have been staring right through Elros, towards something neither of the twins could picture, a host of phantoms made of ashes and dust. He shook his head.

“I have fulfilled my purpose.”

“It is through the blood of our people that you did, your Silmarils are drenched in it. Our destiny is now one.” 

Maedhros didn't acknowledge his words, but once again stretched his dirty, bruised hand towards him. 

Elrond lifted the bag to his chest and felt the shape of those all-devouring jewels through the rough cloth, half-wishing he could just make them disappear. But he wouldn't lose to them. 

“If you kill yourself, I will kill myself too,” he choked out.

Elros stiffened at his side, but didn't say anything to contradict or rebuke him, and Elrond brushed his mind in gratitude. 

“No,” Maedhros gasped. “No –...you have...you have your future, your own future, you will move on –”

“My own, yes. Only I have the right to decide. You can try to push us away even now, if you will, but it won't change the facts. My brother and I want to be with you, because we love you. Your death won't gift us freedom and joy after all we've been through. You would hurt us, _again_ , and...and...and I'm sure your father wouldn't want you to die. You told us he wanted you to find joy, right?”

It was Maglor's to gasp. 

Elrond had never mentioned their father until then. Maedhros and Maglor themselves didn't talk of him much: his memory was the last cherished treasure for them to jealously guard. Elrond and Elros had never asked. Elrond half expected Maedhros to get angry again. But he had tugged on the right thread, and Maedhros unravelled. He hung his head, his shoulders slumped and his hand fell limp at his side. 

Elrond took courage, and stepped forward. “We can move on, together. We -...we can be happy now, together,” he went on, though he didn't know anymore what he could say, and before he even finished he clumsily hopped off the boulder, reaching out towards Maedhros. 

He wrapped his arms around the bigger elf as tight as he could. Maedhros felt small and incredibly frail in his hold. He was tense at first, but gradually relaxed, leaning onto him. Even thin as he now was, he was still way too heavy for Elrond to support, so he steered them both to sit on the boulder. Maedhros didn't let go of him, his face buried on Elrond's shoulder while he took deep, shaky breaths in tearless weeping.

Elros clapped his hands on his thighs, and closed his eyes to savour the relief that washed over him, then stepped down from the boulder. Footsteps sounded behind him and he turned. Maglor's face – a tired, ashen face – was lit up in gratitude: whatever Maedhros had chosen to do, Maglor wouldn't have been able, or willing, to hold him back.

They sat down together next to Elrond and Maedhros. 

“How did you find us?” Maglor asked.

Elros wrapped his left arm around Maglor's waist, nuzzling against his chest. “We simply followed you.”

“All the way from Amon Ereb?”

“You taught us well,” Elros confirmed with a smirk. “You _knew_ we didn't want you to leave us. And we ended up lucking out, for once. We will hold the Silmarils to ransom. If you want them, you will have to keep us too.”

Maglor gave a chuckle, a little shrill but genuinely mirthful. “We will share them.”

“Good.”

Maglor reached for his brother's side, and when Maedhros lifted his stump, he grasped that, his eyelids fluttering close over unshed tears.

“Where do you want to go?”

Elros shrugged, stretching his right arm towards bleak desolation: a void for them to fill. 

“Wherever.”


End file.
